


If Your Parents Post Out a Marriage Ad for You Without Your Permission, Disown Them

by achilleus



Series: Life is Just One Happy Accident After Another [1]
Category: Gintama
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Attempt at Humor, Domestic, Fluff, Implied Relationships, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-18
Updated: 2016-01-18
Packaged: 2018-05-14 20:11:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,683
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5756650
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/achilleus/pseuds/achilleus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kondo Isao ends up sharing a flat with Katsura Kotarou purely by accident. Or well, purely by accident on his part. A definitely intended practical joke on Sougo’s part. Even though Kondo loves the younger boy, sometimes Toshi’s muttered comments that range to screeched yells of “THAT LITTLE SHIT” regarding Sougo seem to ring unbearably true.</p>
            </blockquote>





	If Your Parents Post Out a Marriage Ad for You Without Your Permission, Disown Them

**Author's Note:**

> This ficlet is part of a bigger modern AU Gintama universe I am trying to slowly build. I had a lot of fun with this fic, and though it's not one of my usual ships, they're both just such fun characters it's impossible to not have fun writing them. :)
> 
> I hope you all enjoy! :)

Kondo Isao ends up sharing a flat with Katsura Kotarou purely by accident. Or well, purely by accident on _his_ part. A definitely intended practical joke on Sougo’s part. Even though Kondo loves the younger boy, sometimes Toshi’s muttered comments that range to screeched yells of “ _THAT LITTLE SHIT_ ” regarding Sougo seems to ring unbearably true.  
  
Kondo wasn’t exactly sure what he had done (or not done) to earn the brown-haired boy’s anger, but he was pretty convinced Sougo just had to let out his sadistic tendencies towards someone (on a count of every other hour), and since his usual target, Toshi, was off for the long weekend visiting his older brother, Kondo somehow ended up being on Sougo’s hit list.  
  
Which, he was starting to realize, is not a very fun place to be.  
  
He got the call on a Sunday, somewhere around one in the afternoon. While he didn’t recognize the number, he still picked up just in case (a big mistake, really).  
  
“Hello?”  
  
“Hello, is this Kondo-san?” A pleasant male voice asked from the other side.  
  
Somehow, trepidation began settling deeply in the pit of Kondo’s stomach and cold sweat began beading on his brow, and it was with great hesitance that he responded with a “yes…?”  
  
“This is Katsura Kotarou. I’m just calling regarding the flyer you posted up in the community center; the one about the flat share? I was just wondering if the room is still available.”  
  
Kondo knew this Sunday would be a bad Sunday the moment his brain slowly registered the words. His mind became the jumbled mess as he frantically tried to remember if he had posted up an ad and if he did indeed need a flatmate (both of which the answer was a resounding “no”), and his belated reply and elongated silence seemed to register as a positive answer to this _Katsura Kotarou_ person, because his voice chimed up from the other end.  
  
“Great! Then how about we meet up? Do you know the little café around the corner from your flat? I could meet you there in say…an hour?”  
  
“No, wait—“ Kondo protested, his mouth working slowly, lips feeling all numb like when one goes to a dentist and gets injected with numbing medication via a needle to the gums.  
  
“Oh, you’re right,” Katsura Kotarou sighed jovially. Kondo blinked, feeling a vague whiplash when Katsura Kotarou continued, “I should just meet you at the flat. I mean, I should probably check out the place before we settle on any sort of deal. I’ll meet you at the flat in an hour!”  
  
And before Kondo could so much as let out a peep, Katsura Kotarou hung up, and the dull beeping from the phone simply added to Kondo’s ever-growing migraine.  
  
“Wait, eh?” Kondo blinked rapidly at his phone as if the device contained all the answers to the world. “Wait…huh. Wait… _what_?!”  
  
-x-  
  
Kondo spent the hour leading up to the inevitable visit biting his nails, walking frantically around the flat, and trying desperately to call someone, _anyone_ , to help him out. He had probably called Toshi around forty times (there was no answer) and left an approximated forty voice mails (to which there was no answer). He then called Yamazaki once (he answered, but Kondo hung up soon after when it became clear that the older man was suffering through one of his ‘anpan phases’), before finally calling Sougo.  
  
After regaling his plight to the young male, Sougo simply responded with a vaguely cheerful yet dry tone of voice, “Yay. You get to make a new friend, Kondo-san. Don’t say I never did anything for you.”  
  
“Sougo…you…?!” Kondo gasped dramatically, clutching his handheld closer to his ear and breathing frantically down the line. “Why would you do this, Sougo?!”  
  
“I just thought you needed some help with your social life, Kondo-san.” Sougo replied. “You can’t cling onto Hijikata-san forever. He’s going to die of lung cancer soon, anyway.”  
  
“I have a social life!” Kondo protested passionately, remembering all the time spent tailing Otae-san (to protect her from stalkers, clearly), and fighting with Kyuubei-san (for the legendary status of Otae-san’s knight to fight against stalkers, clearly), to getting drunk with Toshi (to cry about how his efforts of protecting Otae-san against stalkers haven’t brought him any closer to obtaining said legendary status…clearly).  
  
“No you don’t, Kondo-san.” Sougo said bluntly. “Enjoy yourself okay? I have to get to my afternoon class now. Try not to scare him off with your gorilla-like ways, okay Kondo-san?”  
  
And then Kondo got hung up on for the second time that day.  
  
-x-  
  
Katsura Kotarou arrived soon after, at exactly 2:13, as if he had been biding his time behind the door on standby, until it became perfectly an hour after that awful phone call.  
  
Kondo wasn’t exactly sure _what_ to expect when he opened the door, but whatever it was, it wasn’t what Katsura Kotarou was really like.  
  
For one, Katsura Kotarou had long hair. Really long hair. Longer than even Otae-san when she let her hair loose (not that Kondo was ever really privy to such a splendid sight…he just happened to be in the general vicinity every time Otae-san let her hair out of its usual high and loose ponytail). It was long and black and looked ridiculously silky, as if Katsura Kotarou’s hair was delicately spun by caterpillars. His hair looked like it should be plastered over the huge billboards Kondo drove past every day on his way to work. In fact, Katsura Kotarou’s hair looked as if it should be insured for millions of yen.  
  
Katsura Kotarou’s face was incredibly youthful, and Kondo could only attribute such youthfulness to the huge brown eyes centered perfectly on his face. With all the long and sharp angles of Katsura Kotarou’s countenance, the huge, child-like eyes should probably feel incredibly out-of-place, but somehow, the contradictions between sharpness and roundness seemed to work wonders for and definitely in the longer-haired male’s favour.  
  
However, it wasn’t Katsura Kotarou’s physical appearance that threw Kondo off (Kondo was pretty sure that that was a Gucci watch resting delicately on Katsura Kotarou’s left wrist), it was the fact that Katsura Kotarou was holding an actual duck.  
  
_An actual live duck_.  
  
“Um…I’m not sure pets are allowed in this building,” Kondo offered hesitantly, effectively starting the conversation.  


Katsura Kotarou blinked, seemingly baffled that such a concept could exist (and for a second, Kondo felt _hopeful_ that the ban on animals which _he was pretty sure was actually a thing_ would be enough of a deterrence to turn this long-haired man away), before he opened his mouth and retorted half-sharply and half-plainly, “Well of course animals are allowed on the premises. After all, they allowed you to live here, didn’t they?”  
  
“I’m sorry…what?”  
  
“They let you, an actual gorilla, live here,” Katsura Kotarou elaborated. Kondo felt his temples throb in response.  
  
“I’m not a gorilla!” Kondo cried out.  
  
“Obviously not,” Katsura Kotarou allowed. Before Kondo even knew what was happening, the duck-wielding man pushed his way inside, taking care to toe off his black loafers at the doorway. “You’re just a large man that resembles a gorilla.”  
  
Kondo stared in shocked silence by the front door as Katsura Kotarou let down his duck (muttering “Be good Elizabeth. I don’t want to see any of your poop lying on the floor. This is carpet after all”) before walking around his modest apartment.  
  
Since Kondo was still sadly a bachelor, his flat very clearly showed signs of his singleness. A relatively tiny kitchen stood adjacent to the living area (separated only by a counter with three chairs sat before it) which held a couch, a single seater, a scratched and scarred coffee table, and a television with a DVD player and tons to discs scattered around it. Katsura Kotarou clicked his tongue in light distaste at the empty pizza boxes and ramen cups that were haphazardly left on the coffee table before continuing deeper into the flat. Kondo snapped out of his daze shortly afterwards and followed Katsura Kotarou to see the man inspecting the empty guest bedroom.  
  
“So this will be my room, I assume?”  
  
Kondo sighed heavily. “I’m sorry,” he started, sounding genuinely apologetic yet trite, “there seems to be a misunderstanding.”  
  
“Oh, is this not my bedroom?” Katsura Kotarou asked, sounding confused before moving to another door right across from the guest bedroom. “Is it this then?” Yanking open the door, he shook his head and shot Kondo a rueful expression. “I’m sorry Kondo-san, but I can’t sleep in the bathtub.”  
  
“What? No, that’s not it!” Kondo cried out in exasperation. “What I’m trying to tell you is that I’m not looking for a roommate!”  
  
“Then why would you put up an ad clearly asking for a flatmate?” Katsura Kotarou crossed his arms in indignation. “Do you not like me? Is that it?”  
  
“I don’t even know you enough to know if I like you or not,” Kondo muttered. Speaking louder, he continued, “One of my friends put up that ad as a way to play a joke on me. I’m sorry for any confusion, but I’m not currently looking for a roommate.”  
  
“Oh,” Katsura Kotarou slowly uncrossed his arms. A remorseful and disappointed look graced his features, and his lips twisted down in almost a pout. Kondo felt oddly disappointed with himself. “You should tell your friend that it’s not nice to give people false hope.”  
  
“I’m really sorry about this.” Kondo offered. Katsura Kotarou, however, simply shook his head and turned around to head back towards to living area.  
  
“Elizabeth! Come here Elizabeth!” Kondo watched in mild surprise as the white duck waddled obediently towards its owner. “It appears there was a mistake, and Kondo-san here isn’t looking for a roommate.” Elizabeth quacked, and Kondo almost fooled himself into thinking that the duck sounded upset. “I know, I know.”  
  
Katsura Kotarou picked up the duck, and walked towards the doorway where he slowly pulled on his loafers. Kondo trailed after him, apologetic for reasons beyond him, as he watched the other man prepare to leave while seemingly emanating palpable distress.  
  
“Thank you for everything, Kondo-san,” Katsura Kotarou bowed politely, still clutching heavily to his pet. Turning around, he opened the door and walked out. Just before Kondo could gently shut the door behind him, he heard Katsura Kotarou murmuring gently and sadly to Elizabeth, “I guess it’s back to living in rundown motels for us, Elizabeth.”  
  
Kondo sighed heavily before wrenching the door back open.  
  
“Wait,” he called out after his uninvited guest.  
  
When Katsura turned around, a victorious smile was painted on his lips.  
  
The squawking of Elizabeth sounded like the melody of Kondo’s downfall ( _Quack, quack, quackkkkk…_ ).  
  
-x-  
  
Katsura Kotarou didn’t have that many possessions. He only carried two duffel bags into Kondo’s apartment two days after that fated meeting. Kondo found himself slightly surprised, because the man definitely dressed well enough that Kondo assumed he would have many possessions, and in fact, would be able to afford an apartment way out of their current apartment’s price range.  
  
“I can unpack by myself,” Katsura Kotarou said in response to an offer that was never made, and Kondo watched as the other man and his duck closed the bedroom door to the once-guestroom.  
  
Kondo distracted himself by watching a rerun of an old drama that was playing on the television, but even after twelve episodes had flashed by the screen and the sun was beginning to set, the other man still hadn’t left the confines of the room. Sighing to himself, Kondo got up to make dinner for two.  
  
He was just finishing up making a simple fried rice dish when Katsura Kotarou’s voice sounded behind him.  
  
“That looks good.”  
  
“Argh!” Kondo yelped in alarm, nearly upheaving the entire pan and dumping his hard work all over the stove. Luckily, he steadied his shaking hands at the last minute and their dinner was salvaged. “Don’t do that!” Kondo turned around to face his roommate, his face flushed from the heat from the stovetop and also from the shock.  
  
“Sorry,” Katsura Kotarou shrugged nonchalantly, before leaning on the opposite counter. “I could smell you cooking something, so I came out to investigate.”  
  
“It’s just fried rice,” Kondo replied absently, turning down the heat from the stove and moving to the cupboards to take down two bowls. “I don’t have many ingredients so you’re going to have to deal with a plain ham and egg fried rice.”  
  
“That sounds good.” Katsura Kotarou helped spoon the rice into the two bowls before carrying them to the kitchen table. Kondo washed him hands, his mind on overdrive, before he followed after him.  
  
He nearly tripped over Elizabeth on his way there, the duck streaking by him in a mad, white blur towards the sound of Katsura Kotarou’s light whistling. Arriving at the table, Kondo saw that his roommate had procured some sort of feed in a separate bowl and placed it on the kitchen table. When Elizabeth arrived at Katsura Kotarou’s feet, the male picked up his pet and set it down lovingly on the kitchen table where it began frantically feeding. Kondo’s nose wrinkled in slight distaste but refrained from speaking.  
  
“This is really good,” Katsura Kotarou offered after they sat there eating in suspended silence for what felt like an hour. “I haven’t had a home-cooked meal in quite a while.”  
  
“Oh,” Kondo said, munching on his rice. “Do you not cook?”  
  
“I do,” Katsura Kotarou replied, petting Elizabeth affectionately and smiling when the duck gently nipped his lean fingers. “It’s just that since Elizabeth and I have been living at motels for the past month, I haven’t been able to make a proper homemade meal.”  
  
“I’ve been meaning to ask,” Kondo leaned forward. “Why _did_ the two of you have to live in motels? You’re not new to the area, are you?”  
  
“No,” the long-haired male shook his head in an absent dismissal. “I’ve been here for a while. I just got kicked out of my last flat.”  
  
“What happened?” Kondo asked interestedly. He was already conjuring up scenarios that involved a Transformer-like Elizabeth and a drugged up animal patrol.  
  
“I just almost blew up my previous apartment,” Katsura Kotarou replied, waving his right hand around vaguely as if such an unconcerned action would strip the panic-inducing vibe of the words away.  
  
“ _HAH?_ ” Kondo shouted in alarm. His roommate didn’t even blink at his over-the-top response, and simply continued to calmly chew and swallow his dinner. “How did that happen?!”  
  
“I was just microwaving some leftovers for supper when I fell asleep. The food ended up in the microwave for too long and exploded. The apartment is fine, the walls were just a bit singed.”  
  
“What were you microwaving? How long did you microwave it for?”  
  
“Just some soba. I think it was in the microwave for…twenty-three minutes?”  
  
“How does that even happen?” Kondo asked despairingly, already fearing coming back from work one day to find his entire apartment destroyed.  
  
“Lack of sleep. Lack of sleep is how that happens,” Katsura Kotarou nodded sagely, then brought his empty bowl to the kitchen sink.  
  
Kondo stared after his retreating back in numb silence.  
  
(Kondo would find out later on that the explosion was so bad that the police and everyone there thought Katsura Kotarou detonated a bomb, and for the longest time, the landlady wanted to press charges, mistaking the long-haired male for a terrorist.)  
  
-x-  
  
Katsura Kotarou liked to cosplay.  
  
Or…at least, Kondo _thinks_ that’s what the other male is doing.  
  
Once, Kondo arrived back home to a strangely silent and empty apartment. His body ached from the stress and work of that day, and he felt relieved at the quietness that blanketed his apartment. He collapsed onto the couch and dozed off into a half-awake sleep, letting the concrete slabs resting on his eyelids loosen their grip by a fraction.  
  
He was jolted awake from his soft slumber by the lights suddenly turning on (shooting what felt like laser beams onto Kondo’s face) and the rustling of plastic bags. He sat up wearily to see a pirate standing in his doorway, carrying multiple bags in his right arm, while the pirate’s left arm carried an equally decked-out duck.  
  
“Oh, Kondo,” the pirate suddenly piped up, his one visible brown eye blinking innocently under the fluorescent lighting. “I didn’t see you there.” The pirate then bustled into the kitchen, and Kondo was left in a sort of stupor.  
  
It took him an embarrassingly long time to realize that the pirate was no pirate, but Katsura Kotarou dressed up as a pirate (unless the long-haired male really _was_ a pirate, at which Kondo would no longer even be surprised). Stumbling up from where he still lay lounged on his well-worn out couch, Kondo meandered towards the kitchen where he could hear cupboards being opened and closed at lightning speeds.  
  
It was watching Katsura Kotarou placing carrots in the fridge while dressed up like Captain Jack Sparrow (or something) of all people that Kondo realized he knew absolute nothing about his enigma of a roommate, whom he has been rooming with for the past two weeks, and that he never made an effort to get to know or show Katsura Kotarou who he was.  
  
Wordlessly, he walked over (expertly avoiding Elizabeth who quacked at his feet) and began helping Katsura Kotarou unload all the groceries. He looked at all the different spices (he had no idea what parsley even _was_ ) and all the healthy, sugar-free cereal, organic juice, and fruit and vegetables his roommate bought and felt vaguely lost.  
  
It was just when they were finishing up putting away the groceries that Kondo hesitantly began bridging across the distance he hadn’t even really realized was there.  
  
“So…why are you dressed like a pirate, Katsura?”  
  
“It’s not Katsura,” Katsura responded, “It’s Captain Katsura.”  
  
“Okay…so why are you dressed like a pirate, Captain Katsura?”  
  
“Because I’m undercover,” Captain Katsura responded, bundling up the plastic bags and throwing them in the pantry beneath the sink where they could be of further use in the future. Kondo blinked and looked down when Elizabeth began slowly gnawing at his pant leg. He distantly looked back up at Captain Katsura to see the long-haired male rummaging in the fridge and expertly pulling out an organic Greek yogurt.  
  
“Undercover from what?” Kondo asked, after watching Captain Katsura eating three spoonful’s of the frankly not-that-yummy-looking yogurt into his mouth.  
  
“Undercover from everything.”  
  
Kondo nodded, as if he understood everything when he was beginning to realize that he didn’t understand anything at all, and it was again in a daze that he ventured out of the kitchen just to collapse onto the couch once more, where he closed his eyes and thought that he got to know Captain Katsura enough for the day.  
  
-x-  
  
Kondo realized he hadn’t told Toshi that he gained a new roommate until he invited Toshi to his place one night to figure out this one case, and he opened his front door just to have Toshi yelp out “Who the fuck are you?” at the sight of Katsura sitting on the couch with Elizabeth on his lap while watching _Saint Seiya_.  
  
“I’m not a fuck,” Katsura replied, barely looking away from the screen. “I’m Katsura.”  
  
Kondo was glad to see Toshi look as confused as he had been continuously feeling for the past month. The more he got to know about Katsura’s quirks and personality, the more disorientated he felt. It was like riding a rollercoaster and thinking that he had finally grasped all the twists and turns and surprise falls, only to be met with a different kind of rollercoaster every time he felt brave enough to strap himself into one again. Honestly, it was vaguely nauseating.  
  
“Hah?” Toshi turned incredulous eyes towards Kondo, and Kondo just laughed sheepishly.  
  
“Toshi, this is my roommate, Katsura Kotarou. Katsura, this is one of my close friends, Hijikata Toushirou.”  
  
“This is Elizabeth,” Katsura responded simply, vaguely lifting up the duck which turned unimpressed eyes towards the police duo standing in the archway of the front door, before both duck and owner turned their intense gazes back towards _Saint Seiya_.  
  
Toshi began twitching like when he really needed his nicotine fix, and he dragged Kondo towards the older man’s bedroom. Once there, he threw Kondo into the room and closed the door, locking it as well just to be sure. Once that was done, he turned towards where Kondo was sprawled on the floor, breathed in deeply, and yelled out, “ _HAH_?”  
  
“It was an accident,” Kondo said, sitting up and crossing his legs. When Toshi looked down at him with the most unimpressed look, Kondo relented, “It was Sougo’s fault.”  
  
“Tch,” Toshi clicked his tongue in annoyance. “I told you he’s a little piece of shit, Kondo-san.”  
  
“Yeah.” Kondo uttered dully, not even wanting to expand on that train of thought any more. Thankfully, Toshi just rolled his eyes before dropping the duffel bag he had slung over his shoulder and sitting down on the floor across from Kondo. Pulling out various file folders, Toshi flipped them and stacked them from the most relevant onwards.  
  
“Alright, let’s figure out who this bastard is,” Toshi said, and for not-the-first-time, Kondo felt incredibly lucky and relieved to have Toshi in his life.  
  
  
  
  
They emerged from Kondo’s room a good two hours later, only to find Katsura cooking _something_ in the kitchen.  
  
“Ah!” The long-haired male said, when the two police officers came into his line of vision. “Perfect timing, I’m just about finished cooking dinner. Why don’t the two of you sit down and I’ll dish it out?”  
  
“No, I’m actually about to leave,” Toshi said, his fingers twitching like mad by his side. Kondo could see where this conversation was heading before Katsura even opened his mouth, so when he did, Kondo wasn’t even surprised anymore.  
  
“Nonsense!” Katsura exclaimed passionately. “A growing man such as yourself cannot be skipping out on meals! How will you properly grow into a functional adult in society if you won’t even properly regulate your eating habits in order to create a functional stomach?”  
  
Toshi blinked dumbly for a good few seconds while Katsura waved his spatula around in an imitation of what Kondo could only deduce to be a magic wand. Finally, slowly stretching out his words as if he wasn’t quite sure that they were the right ones, Toshi uttered, “I have no idea what you just said,” before perking up to proclaim more angrily, “And I’m not a small child. In fact, I’m already a properly functioning adult!”  
  
“Just sit down so I can serve the food, or it will go cold!”  
  
Grumbling angrily but unable to avoid and resist Kondo’s pleading eyes (because good God, if Toshi left Katsura would nag Kondo for the rest of the evening and possibly the rest of tomorrow evening as well), Toshi moved towards the kitchen table where he plopped down unhappily and dropped his duffel on the floor with a resounding _clack_ just to demonstrate how truly angry he was.  
  
Kondo sat down across from him and murmured “Thank you” quietly to his friend, who simply closed his blue eyes in agitation and rubbed him temples roughly.  
  
“Here,” Katsura whipped towards the table in a flurry of cloth and limbs. He dropped down three plates and a bowl of duck feed. Kondo couldn’t help but think that his roommate looked a bit too proud in comparison to what was actually on the plate. Three grilled cheese sandwiches stared up at them, and Katsura plopped down with Elizabeth dutifully by his side, giving quick thanks for the food and tucking into his sandwich.  
  
Toshi blinked down at his own sandwich, and Kondo watched as the vein on his temple began to throb, and the colour red beginning to creep up Toshi’s pale neck and spotting his ears with the startling shade as well.  
  
“This is a grilled cheese sandwich,” Toshi said. Katsura hummed and gave Toshi the stink-eye, as if non-verbally saying ‘ _No duh…_ ’  
  
Kondo, already used to this, picked up his sandwich, biting heavily into it and promising to cook himself a pack of ramen later on.  
  
Meanwhile, Toshi’s eye twitched, and he ground out, “Didn’t you mention something about nutrition and eating healthily?”  
  
“No,” Katsura said, swallowing before continuing, “I said you shouldn’t be skipping out on meals. You should eat healthily as well, of course. You’re a police officer, aren’t you? As a police officer, you have the duty to protect the innocent citizens of Edo, and in order to do so, you must be in top shape. In order to be in top shape, you must eat a nice and balanced diet fit for a warrior.”  
  
“Tell me,” Toshi stated through gritted teeth. “What part of _this_ ,” here, he waved his plate with the sandwich on it up in Katsura’s face, as if the long-haired man couldn’t possibly see without the object being less than a centimeter from his face, “is part of a balanced, nutritional meal ‘fit for a warrior’?”  
  
“Well,” Katsura began, speaking in a tone of voice that Kondo had mentally dubbed his ‘sage voice’ and which was used quite often about the most stupid of topics. “There you have your grain, and also your dairy product. It’s vegetable bread so you have your vegetables, and soy is a great substitute for meat.” Katsura pointed to one of the three cups on the table that contained a full glass of soy milk.  
  
Toshi’s gunmetal blue eyes narrowed, and he snarled, “Don’t be a smartass. You _know_ what I mean. At the very least put some mayonnaise in this sandwich! Mayonnaise is part of any balanced, nutritional meal.” He began rummaging in his duffel bag before procuring a threateningly gleaming bottle of his most beloved substance. “Thankfully, I always keep some on me.”  
  
Here, Toshi leaned forward to smartly put a huge dollop of mayonnaise on Katsura’s sandwich, nearly threatening to overtake the entire sandwich. Kondo stuffed the rest of his sandwich quickly in his mouth, already used to his friend’s quirks and antics, and quickly gulped down a huge half of his soy milk as well. It was quick thinking on his part too, and he watched with stilled horror as Toshi proceeded to squeeze another healthy serving of mayonnaise into Katsura’s cup of soy milk.  
  
In a way, Kondo was pretty pleased with Toshi’s generosity and his willingness to share his favourite condiment with a near-stranger (knowing Toshi though, he’s seeing this as God’s work or something, that and he probably has about another one hundred bottles stacked away in his own kitchen).  
  
Katsura, however, didn’t share even a smidgen of Kondo’s vaguely pleased feelings. He stared in silence down at his now ruined sandwich and drink. Elizabeth also stared, and – not for the first time – Kondo thought that the duck must be sentient.  
  
After another minute in which Toshi spent it nodding to himself in the most pleased and smug manner and Kondo spent it waiting for the outburst, Katsura stood up at lightning speed, pushing away his plate and cup (but somehow masterfully preventing anything from spilling) in the most dramatic of fashions, his chair scraping loudly across the floor.  
  
“How could you?” Katsura shouted. “My balanced and nutritional meal is now ruined!”  
  
He then ran away with Elizabeth waddling slowly after him. Kondo could swear that crystalline tears were gathering upon his roommate’s long lashes, threatening to fall. And it was with utter exasperation while listening to Toshi mutter, “Tch. So many plebeians who don’t know how to appreciate real gourmet food” that Kondo closed his eyes, and for once in his life, felt relatively sane and normal.  
  
-x-  
  
Katsura acted quite differently at times when he was “undercover”. Kondo had a vague inkling that this occurred though it was quite hard to actually pinpoint this fact down, as regardless of the disguise, Katsura was still completely weird.  
  
Kondo had really only come to this conclusion when Katsura _became_ (if you will) Zurako.  
  
“Uhhh…Chief?” Yamazaki knocked on Kondo’s propped-open door, and Kondo quickly tried to stuff the collage of Otae-san that he had created underneath the various documents that littered his desk.  
  
“What? Yes? Zaki? Yes? How can I help you, Zaki?” Kondo frantically asked, throwing heaps and heaps of various documents over his homemade collage in the hopes that his older co-worker failed to notice it. Yamazaki’s completely unimpressed and dry expression told Kondo that his reflexes were too slow and Yamazaki made sure to shoot another slightly disgusted glance down at where the collage has been avalanched over (which, in Kondo’s humble opinion, was unfair, because he knew _all about Yamazaki’s crush on that pretty green-haired girl that worked in the bar beneath the Yorozuya_ ) before responding.  
  
“There’s someone at the front wanting to see you.”  
  
“Ah, thank you Zaki, I’ll be right there.”  
  
Yamazaki nodded before leaving the room, and Kondo huffed out a sigh. He pulled out the collage of Otae-san and lovingly touched its surface before stowing it away in one of the compartments of his desk. Standing up and cracking the stiff bones of his back (he had been sitting down, hard at work all morning [because he was hard at work, he definitely did not stare at pictures of Otae-san all day]) he made his way to the front of the department.  
  
As he made his way to the reception, he noticed the glances his subordinates shot him; cheeky and gleeful. A few snickered as he walked past, and a few more even threw him an impudent thumbs up. Cold sweat bridged over his eyebrows, and Kondo frantically wondered if his banana was on display again.  
  
Finally making it to the front desk, he noticed a very tall, pretty woman wearing a dark purple dress with her long, dark, silky hair tied to the side with a white band. A bunch of bracelets jangled on her left wrist, and well-worn sandals adorned her feet. Her fingers were tapping rapidly against her right thigh as she bounced her huge beige bag up and down her left shoulder relatively impatiently. Kondo wondered for a moment if she was waiting for him, but, not recognizing her at all, he simply approached the front desk to ask the receptionist about his unknown and unseen guest.  
  
As he made his way towards the desk, the woman perked up. And it was only then, when their eyes met, that Kondo realized that the pretty lady was no pretty lady, but Katsura in another disguise. Belatedly, he also noticed Elizabeth (wearing a fetching pink bow around its neck) standing proudly next to Katsura.  
  
Kondo stopped dead in his tracks, and without his consent, his mouth dropped open in stupefied silence. Katsura – not noticing or not caring – simply pulled out a bento box from the confines of his huge bag and thrust it towards Kondo.  
  
“Uh…Katsura, what are you doing here?” Kondo tried to take to stride that Katsura was making a very convincing woman, and though he should be used to these elaborate and, at times, over the top disguises, for one reason or the other, Kondo simply couldn’t wrap his mind around the fact that the pretty ‘lady’ standing before him was his roommate who very creepily slept with his eyes opened, whose lack of singing skills were only comparable to Shinpachi-kun’s, and who ate uncooked cabbage for one week straight because a chain email told him to lest he ‘end up dying alone’.  
  
“It’s not Katsura,” not-Katsura said, flipping the loose strands of his inky hair behind his shoulder with a delicate flick of the hand, “it’s Zurako. And I’m here to give you your lunch. You forgot your bento box at home. You shouldn’t be so forgetful; eating three balanced meals a day is what makes men strong.”  
  
Tetsu – the new intern – chuckled, while staring at Kondo with eyes that seemed much too knowing in all their innocent nature. Flushing, the police captain dragged his roommate to the currently empty smoking room.  
  
“Look,” Kondo said, “thanks for bringing me this.”  
  
“No problem,” Zurako nodded, looking so at home in his current attire, that Kondo couldn’t help but marvel at how natural and confident Katsura always seemed, regardless of what he was wearing or saying or how others looked at him. It was kind of inspirational and amazing in a way, really, and as Zurako was turning away to leave, Kondo found himself blurting:  
  
“It’s almost my lunch break. Do you want to have lunch with me?”  
  
Zurako turned around slowly. His hands twisted deeply in the fabric of his dress, and Kondo noted almost unconsciously how his roommate’s mannerisms seemed to change with every disguise he donned; with Zurako being the most obvious in the changes of mannerisms. The way Zurako held his (her?) body was different from the way Katsura usually held his body; the lean of the figure and the tilt of the head were different, and the way Zurako moved his appendages around seemed somehow more delicate and lady-like than the way Katsura would usually move. Zurako and Katsura were both graceful – but it was a different kind of grace that the two encompassed.  
  
Kondo knew he was being silly in a way. After all, Katsura and Zurako were both the same enigma. However, the more Kondo uncovered of his roommate, the more complex and exciting Katsura seemed to become, and Kondo was oddly intrigued by this person who at times could be so simple, before flipping around and showing such intense and differing depths.  
  
Zurako frowned and continued watching Kondo carefully, his brown eyes seemingly assessing everything about the older man. Kondo stared back, feeling oddly nervous, and he tried to stomp down the trepidation fluttering around in his stomach.  
  
“But I made you that bento,” Zurako finally said, lips twisted down into an all-too-familiar pout.  
  
“I’ll eat it later, for afternoon tea or something,” Kondo said. “Come on, I haven’t had lunch with you outside ever. And we’ve been sharing a flat together for two and a half months!”  
  
“Two months and three weeks,” Zurako corrected.  
  
“Right, right.”  
  
“…fine,” Zurako finally relented, and Elizabeth quacked in what Kondo liked to think was a cheerful manner. “But you have to promise me that you’ll finish that bento before you get home today.”  
  
“I will. Promise!”  
  
“Alright then,” Zurako smiled gently, playing with the bangles on his wrist. Kondo bounced on the balls of his feet, somehow feeling like he was flying yet grounded at the same time. The two simply gazed at each other for a long time, almost as if in suspended animation.  
  
The moment was broken by Toshi who crashed into the room, his clothes singed and his hair smelling strongly of something fried beyond salvation. There was ash smudged all over his cheeks, and he growled angrily, “That fucking Sougo. I’m gonna string him by his balls on the balcony one day.”  
  
“Uh…Toshi?” Kondo tentatively pushed out.  
  
Toshi froze, and his eyes flickered to Kondo before flickering to Zurako. Hilariously, his eyes continued flickering back and forth before he finally seemed to understand what he was seeing. Red crept up the blue-eyed man’s neck, before reaching his cheeks and causing his forehead to flush as well.  
  
“I—I’m sorry,” Toshi stuttered out, seemingly abashed and somehow ashamed. “I didn’t mean to—I’m just going to—I need a smoke.”  
  
And, disregarding the fact that he was in the smoking room, Toshi fled in a flurry of burning red meat and smouldering clothes. Kondo swallowed his reassurances of “Don’t worry Toshi. That’s just Katsura, not need to be embarrassed!” in the face of Toshi’s quickly retreating back.  
  
“So…lunch?” Zurako asked after a moment of secondhand embarrassment and silence.  
  
“Yeah, lunch.”  
  
(Kondo would find out later that the bento box Katsura made for him contained only fried bananas.  
  
Which.  
  
Alright.)  
  
-x-  
  
They ended up walking quite a far distance away from the station. This was a mixture of Kondo’s sudden piqued interest in Katsura and his want to get to know him better, but it mainly stemmed from the fact that no restaurant in the nearby vicinity would allow a duck into their establishment.  
  
“I know this ramen place,” Zurako said jovially. His steps seemed lighter than usual and he flounced about in a way that Kondo simply knew he wouldn’t be able to imitate. “It’s owned by a friend, and she doesn’t discriminate against Elizabeth.”  
  
Kondo swallowed his retort that Elizabeth was an animal, and there were laws set in place forbidding animals against certain establishments and instead nodded knowingly in reply.  
  
“So are you undercover again today?” Kondo asked, trying to tamper down the imploring tone lacing his voice.  
  
“Nope,” Zurako replied. “I just felt like dressing up today.” Kondo glanced over surreptitiously a few times, and Zurako caught his eye in one instance. Grinning cheekily, Zurako asked, “Do I look nice?”  
  
“You look nice enough,” Kondo relented, feeling the back of his neck grow hotter. “When I first saw you, I didn’t even recognize you! How’d you do your makeup so good?”  
  
“Mmm, practice. I work for an okama bar every now and then, and after a bit, you just get the grasp of it.”  
  
“You work for an okama bar?” Kondo asked, trying to wrap his mind around the fact that his long-haired companion worked for an okama bar, giving service and entertaining male customers.  
  
“On and off,” Zurako said. Perking up, he turned towards Kondo with an impish look gracing his countenance. “I’m actually working there next Saturday evening. You should come visit!”  
  
“The okama bar?” Kondo felt somewhat paralyzed at the very thought. Being a regular at Otae-san’s hostess club, Kondo was no stranger to such establishments. However, a hostess club differed quite a bit to an okama club. If Otae-san worked for an okama club…then maybe Kondo would venture into one…however…  
  
“I think you’ll like it?” Zurako needled on. “I could get you free drinks and snacks for the evening.”  
  
Kondo looked at the way Zurako was smiling up at him, eyes lowered to a seductive half-mass, and painted lips tilted up into a lazily confident smile. Wondering if Zurako knew just how flirtatious he was being, and then envisioning Zurako shooting such looks towards male customers, Kondo felt strangely agitated yet compelled to go.  
  
“Sure,” he nodded before he even really knew what he was doing. “I’ll come.”  
  
Seemingly not having heard his answer at all (or perhaps simply not caring enough to respond) Zurako completely changed the topic.  
  
“I just watched _Free!_ ” Zurako said, and Kondo once again felt that familiar whiplash feeling just by walking alongside his roommate. “I think it’s time I mastered the butterfly swimming technique.”  
  
“We could go to the pool sometime if you’d like,” Kondo offered, smiling despite the throbbing confusion residing in his head. “There’s a community pool nearby, and I haven’t been swimming in a while. It’ll be nice to spread my wings again.”  
  
“You mean spread your legs again,” Zurako replied, before continuing over Kondo’s spluttering. “And yes, I hear the community pool is quite a nice place for fishing and cooling watermelons, isn’t that right Elizabeth?” The coddled duck quacked happily in agreement.  
  
“…I don’t think that’s what the community pool is for…” Kondo muttered. Zurako just giggled daintily, and Kondo watched with weary yet intrigued eyes at this action which Katsura would never be caught doing. In a way, Kondo almost missed the boisterous laugh Katsura would have let loose, yet he was also interested in this dainty quality circling around Zurako now. Such contradictions, Kondo knew, because Katsura (and, in turn, Zurako) was _anything_ but dainty. He once saw a picture of the man keeping an Arnold Schwarzenegger lookalike in a chokehold, and Kondo still couldn’t tell if that was real, acted out, or Photoshop.  
  
“Nonsense!” Zurako chimed. “You’ll be surprised at how much aquatic life resides in the community pool. Families of little living creatures living there; it’s like wonderland!”  
  
“…it’s definitely living creatures of _something_ …” Kondo murmured exhaustedly.  
  
“Ah! Here we are,” Zurako said, standing in front of two traditional sliding shoji doors leading to a modest yet very welcoming looking establishment. Kondo, in a mad fit, opened the door and let his roommate walk in first. Flushed, he followed in after Zurako.  
  
“Ikumatsu-dono!” Zurako called out. Elizabeth quacked triumphantly as well, and Kondo looked around almost meekly in embarrassment.  
  
Luckily, the restaurant was relatively empty except for the one straggler slurping up his ramen. A pretty blonde woman peeked out from behind the wooden counter separating the seating area from the kitchen.  
  
“Katsura and Elizabeth, what a pleasant surprise,” Ikumatsu-san said. Her eyes flashed over to Kondo before something akin to fond exasperation settled in her eyes. “Which poor soul did you drag here now?”  
  
“It’s not Katsura today, Ikumatsu-dono, it’s Zurako,” Zurako said, settling comfortably at the counter area before gesturing for Kondo to sit next to him. Kondo settled in and looked around, feeling very at home in this small yet cozy establishment. “And this is Kondo. He’s my pet gorilla.”  
  
“It’s not gorilla!” Kondo yelled out. “It’s gorilla gorilla gorilla!” He paused at Ikumatsu-san’s humoured laughter and quirked eyebrow, and stuttered out, “Ah! I got it wrong! It’s not gorilla, it’s human! I’m a human! I’m the poor human that has to room with this loser!”  
  
“Yes, yes,” Ikumatsu-san said, ignoring Kondo’s cries of “believe me!” and handing out the well-worn menus to Zurako and Kondo. “Welcome to my ramen shop. Take your time looking at the menu.” She then turned around and went back to dicing up some vegetables.  
  
Kondo cracked open his menu and looked at all the delicious things listed down. His stomach grumbled and Zurako, not having opened his menu at all, shot Kondo an almost disdainful look.  
  
“That’s why you should eat breakfast.”  
  
“I did eat breakfast this morning!” Kondo protested, having decided what he’ll get already and closing the menu. “I ate a banana.”  
  
“A true gorilla through and through,” Zurako murmured. “Are you a fan of bananas?”  
  
“Bananas are okay,” Kondo lied through his teeth, not wanting to express how much he actually enjoyed them. He didn’t need any more reason to be compared to apes.  
  
“Then I think you’ll really enjoy the bento I made for you,” Zurako nodded with a pleased look gracing his face. His painted lips tilted up into a soft smile and Kondo followed the curve of his lips in an almost-trance like state.  
  
“Oh no,” he murmured softly, breaking out of his stupor only when Ikumatsu-san bustled up to them with a notepad and pen at the ready.  
  
“Are you guys ready to order?”  
  
“Fried rice!” Zurako called out. “Fried rice with scallop and shrimps!”  
  
“For the last time, this is a _ramen restaurant_ ,” Ikumatsu-san snapped back, though affection clearly resided in her eyes. “If you wanted fried rice, you should’ve gone somewhere else!”  
  
Kondo watched them argue in a daze.  
  
Elizabeth turned to look at him with much-too-perceiving eyes. The duck let out what Kondo liked to think as a sympathetic squeak, and the man reached out to dumbly stroke at the top of the animal’s head.  
  
He felt like he was slowly going crazy.  
  
-x-  
  
The following Saturday, Kondo meandered down the dirty streets of the red light district, still in the daze that had plagued him all week.  
  
Katsura had left their apartment a few hours earlier with a bag slung over one arm and Elizabeth carried lovingly in the other. He had thrown open the front door and taken a step out before turning back to Kondo to say, “Remember, come around at 7!” He then left in a flurry of movement, not unlike a hurricane, and Kondo had simply stared at the closed door dumbly.  
  
At half past six, Kondo pulled on his shoes and threw on a well-worn sweater. He had debated calling Toshi and begging him to accompany him to an _okama club_ , but the embarrassment that clung onto him stopped him from reaching his cellular device. So instead, he was forced to walk through the streets himself, dodging drunken couples, and stepping over suspicious puddles on the floor. He looked down at the hastily scribbled address on the bright pink sticky note that Katsura had left him earlier in the day, and furrowed his brows in confusion.  
  
After walking up and down and strip where Katsura had instructed in his note, Kondo finally noticed a relatively unobtrusive building with a flashing sign proudly stating _Kamakko Club!_ at the very front. A few drunken men stood loitering in the front of the building, and there was one man lying face down in a puddle of his own vomit. Kondo hesitantly approached the building, stepping over the fallen man and ignoring the jibes of the others, and entered the establishment.  
  
The inside of the building was a pleasant surprise. Though much darker than Otae-san’s hostess club, the whole place felt calm and almost _cozy_ in a way. A stage was at the front of the room though currently no one was performing, and colourful lights flickered about the room. People were scattered about, and light murmuring seemed to fill the entirety of the place, making the entire area feel lived-in.  
  
“A guest!” Suddenly thin, grabby arms encircled Kondo’s left appendage, and a male voice pitched higher squealed excitedly into his ear. Wincing at the unexpected loudness, Kondo ignored the reverberations echoing shrilly in his head, and turned around to see a transvestite with an orange bob, heavy makeup, and the most ridiculously prominent chin Kondo had ever seen in his life.  
  
So star-struck he was by this truly god-level chin, Kondo allowed himself to be pulled in after her, while her prattling of “So nice to have a new customer! My name is Azumi, by the way, but you can call me Azumi. Come, come, sit by me. I’m really the only one with any class in here, so I won’t disappoint. Here!”  
  
Right before Azumi could push Kondo down onto a free couch, and hand grabbed at Kondo’s elbow. Kondo looked back questioningly to see Zurako all done up with his hair made into a lovely bun at the top of his head which held a pretty golden butterfly pin in decoration, wearing a shiny looking pink kimono with printed white flower patterns following the long flow of the sleeves and hems, and carefully applied makeup.  
  
“Zurako!” Kondo cried out. He felt immensely relieved to see someone so familiar in such a foreign place.  
  
Zurako, however, wasn’t looking at Kondo. Instead, his fierce brown gaze was trained onto Azumi, and he snobbishly looked down at the other with the tip of his nose.  
  
“Back off, Agomi,” Zurako said before turning around and dragging Kondo along with him by the sleeve. Zurako skillfully ignored Azumi’s enraged and frustrated cries of “It’s _Azumi_!” and even more skillfully maneuvered his way around sprawled legs, wayward customers, and bustling hostesses.    
  
Kondo took that moment – while being led by Zurako through the light throng of warm bodies, darkened corners and castaway shadows, and littered empty glasses dripping with trails of water residue – to properly take in his roommate.  
  
Zurako’s eyes were framed with glimmering purple powder, so light and dainty it felt fairy-like and magical. Dark eyelashes cast long shadows against the soft paleness of supple cheeks, belying how long they really were, and plump, full lips were painted the softest shade of pink. The sharp contours of his face was emphasized by the professional looking updo that he sported which allowed for a few loose black strands to fall down and frame his features. Kondo felt the long sleeves of Zurako’s pink kimono brush teasingly against his side with its swishing, heavy fabrics, and Kondo suddenly felt the sweat that had been dotting his brow simply swell up suddenly and start falling down, leaving trails of his own embarrassment and uncertainty.  
  
“We’ll sit at my table,” Zurako spoke up suddenly, and Kondo had to lean forward to hear him over the thrum of music in the room. He was abruptly aware of how much taller Zurako suddenly seemed due to the traditional geisha sandals he was sporting. Swallowing, Kondo quelled the urge to learn everything and anything about his roommate.  
  
“We’re on our break right now, so we don’t have any customers,” Zurako continued. “So there’s no need for you to be embarrassed.”  
  
It took a moment to register, before Kondo asked “ _We_?”  
  
“Oui, we,” Zurako said without further explanation. The confusion that had been a constant for the past three months suddenly seemed too overwhelming for Kondo, and he breathed in deeply (it did absolutely nothing to help though, because the moment he breathed in all he could smell was a sweet scent of Zurako’s light perfume of flowers mixed with his natural scent of walnuts and warmth).  
  
Apparently having reached their destination in some murky corner of the bar, Zurako pushed Kondo down onto the couch, which he went willingly with nary a protest. When someone suddenly sprayed something on him, Kondo jumped up with much protest.  
  
“Hey, what the hell—?!”  
  
He paused though when he saw a familiar silver-haired man sitting across from him. Or, well, semi-familiar. The heavily done makeup (which did nothing but bring out just how dead those eyes were), the pigtails, and the traditional, pink, feminine kimono were all new territory.  
  
“Yorozuya—?” Kondo gasped, before he threw a hand to cover his mouth. Gleeful guffaws escaped his lips as he soaked in the sight of one Sakata Gintoki, dressed to the nines and looking more apprehensive than ever.  
  
“Shut it, gorilla!” The perm-head cried out. Looking around with barely-concealed uneasy nervousness, the Yorozuya leaned forward and hissed out, “You’re here alone, right? Hijikata-kun isn’t here, right?”  
  
Sobering up, Kondo thought about Toshi. He could already imagine his friend’s face bursting with an all-too-familiar red hue at the very sight of the regular Yorozuya. Seeing the Yorozuya in _this_ garb though, Toshi may just die of a heart attack. Settling his laughter, Kondo shook his head in light merriment at the situation he found himself in, as well as in light exasperation over Toshi’s blatant and very poorly hidden feelings for the _bum_ sitting across from him on the opposite couch.  
  
“No, Toshi isn’t here,” Kondo replied. “You don’t have to be nervous though. I’m sure Toshi would _love_ to see this.” He couldn’t resist lightly teasing the other man.  
  
The Yorozuya, however, just stuck in nose in the air and turned to face the side with a haughty look on his face. “I won’t show this amazing sight to just anyone,” Sakata-san said. “Only on the third date, and _only after_ I’ve been treated to a five-star restaurant.”  
  
“I’ll be sure to tell Toshi that,” Kondo playfully said. The way Sakata-san’s face flushed slightly pink made Kondo chuckle in relief on Toshi’s behalf.  
  
Zurako suddenly plopped down next to Kondo on the couch, and Kondo jolted a bit, having forgotten his roommate during the gleeful discovery of the Yorozuya. Sakata-san reached out towards the table sitting in between them and reached for an open sake bottle, all while saying “Please don’t tell me _that’s_ the pet gorilla you’ve adopted, Zura.”  
  
“It’s not Zura, it’s Zurako!” Zurako snapped. “And yes, I found him lost and alone in Narnia and decided to adopt him.”  
  
Speaking over Kondo’s indignant “I’m not a gorilla, and I’m not your pet! In fact, I’m basically the one who’s adopted you!” Sakata-san stated dryly, “No matter how much you disinfect his banana, it’ll still be swarming with bacteria.”  
  
“What are you two even _saying_?” Kondo cried out.  
  
Zurako continued without paying any attention to his roommate’s confusion: “Are you acquainted with my gorilla, Paako?”  
  
“Don’t call me Paako,” Sakata-san said, tugging impatiently on one of his pigtails. “And stop making it sound so dirty; I’ve bumped into your gorilla every now and then.”  
  
“Bumped uglies, you mean?”  
  
“Shut the fuck up, Zura! Who would want to bump uglies with this ape?”  
  
Kondo, having given up, reached for an entire bottle of sake and took a nice long gulp from it.  
  
“It’s not Zura, it’s Zurako!” Sighing, Zurako leaned forward. “Why didn’t you tell me you were friends with a police officer, Paako? You could have gotten me out of a lot of trouble.”  
  
“I’m a proper law-abiding citizen now,” Sakata-san replied. Kondo snorted loudly and the perm-head shot him a dirty look before continuing. “I would never use my connections for dirty purposes.”  
  
Sighing, Zurako leaned back until his shoulders were pillowed by Kondo’s arm which was sprawled along the back of the seat. Kondo jolted, and shivered at the warmth Zurako was emanating. Looking at Sakata-san, Kondo shivered even more at the overprotectiveness and suspicion brewing in the other’s suddenly sharp, red orbs.  
  
“So,” Kondo started, trying to ignore the glare coming from Sakata-san while attempting to (and completely failing at) prying his right arm from behind Zurako’s resting frame. “How do you guys know each other?”  
  
“We’ve known each other since we were kids,” Sakata-san gritted out. Cold sweat broke out over Kondo’s forehead at the growl he heard laced through the silver-haired man’s words.  
  
Completely oblivious, Zurako continued serenely, “We lived in the same neighbourhood and attended the same school. We grew up together.”  
  
“We’re pretty protective of each other,” Sakata-san added. He shot Kondo a feral grin, which was emphasized by his painted red lips. The white of his canines glinted menacingly in the flashing lights of the club. “If anything happened to Zura…” Sakata-san trailed off, letting Kondo fill in the blanks with his own imagination.  
  
“Paako, that’s so sweet!” Zurako leaned forward, and Kondo gratefully pulled his arm towards himself until his hands rested meekly on his lap. “But it’s not Zura, it’s Zurako!”  
  
Sakata-san only hummed noncommittally and allowed Zurako to prattle on, filling the silence.  
  
Sakata-san was really someone Kondo didn’t want to mess with. He had seen enough times firsthand how powerful the other man could be when was fighting to protect something. It was one of the reasons Kondo looked up to him, and why he didn’t even bother to question the perm-head about his intentions with his Toshi. He almost had a one-track-of-mind when it came to ensuring the safety of his loved ones, and though this was something Kondo usually admired, now it was just a bit of a hindrance. To what, exactly, Kondo wasn’t even sure. But the squinted glare Sakata-san threw at him every now and then in between Zurako’s punctuated words left Kondo feeling cold and uncomfortable.  
  
_Nothing is happening between us! I swear! Otae-san is the only one for me, I promise, Sakata-san! So please, stop glaring at me like that!_  
  
Kondo saddled himself down for a long night.  
  
-x-  
  
“I need to talk to the gorilla for a moment, do you mind?”  
  
Kondo perked up and saw Sakata-san (wiped free from all his makeup and free of all pigtails and feminine clothing) muttering to Katsura. The long-haired male nodded and said something Kondo couldn’t hear before traipsing back into the club. Shivering lightly (and not from the cold), Kondo stood erect near the entrance and listened to the crunching footfalls of Sakata-san’s boots.  
  
The silver-haired man simply leaned against the wall beside Kondo, and looked up at the inky dark sky. He squinted, as if looking for something before sighing.  
  
“When we were younger, Zura and I would lay in the community park and just look at the sky,” Sakata-san started. Kondo didn’t turn to face him just as the silver-haired man wasn’t faced towards him. They both simply stared at the sky. “We used to live in the country before, so you could still see some stars. The country isn’t like the city though, is it?  
  
“Looking at the empty sky now just reminds me of how much things have changed yet stayed the same. Even though you can’t see the stars anymore, they’re still there.”  
  
Kondo jumped a bit when Sakata-san suddenly appeared before him. The silver-haired man grinned a bit softly before shaking his head. His eyes looked slightly apologetic and he tilted his head before turning around to walk away. A few paces away though, he stopped and said over his shoulder:  
  
“Treat Zura well, okay? ‘Cause if you hurt him, it’s really not me you need to be afraid of.”  
  
Raising his hand in a vague wave, Sakata-san disappeared into the thick throng of people still lumbering around the district before disappearing amongst the smoke and laughing bodies.  
  
Kondo couldn’t help but wonder if that had actually happened, or if he had finally snapped. The entire evening felt like something out of a dream, hazy and loose-limbed at the corners, until the once crystalline images were fogged up by mist. He shook his head, and the next thing he knew, Katsura was standing beside him with a concerned look on his face.  
  
“Are you ready to go back home?”  
  
Kondo breathed in, and finally felt tethered back to earth by the presence of his roommate. He grinned and reached for Katsura’s heavy looking bag.  
  
“Yeah, let me carry your bag for you.”  
  
“I don’t need you to carry my bag for me,” Katsura said, dancing away from Kondo’s prying hands and taking off in the heavily populated streets. “I’m a warrior, and warriors can carry their own bags!”  
  
Kondo laughed and took after the other man, expertly weaving through the throngs of people and only brushing against an arm or a bag every now and then.  
  
“I was just trying to be nice!” Kondo called out, following the long trails of Katsura’s hair which was billowing heavily behind his back. In that moment, those inky strands felt like the only thing that was real, the only thing that Kondo could really see.  
  
“I don’t need you to be nice,” Katsura called back. “And I’m especially not going to make _you_ carry my bags. That would be animal cruelty!”  
  
“Hah? What are you saying?”  
  
“Exactly what I mean, gorilla! I’m a fan of animals and would never condone animal cruelty, you gorilla!”  
  
“This feels a bit like animal cruelty to me!”  
  
They laughed the whole way back, and Kondo somehow felt like he was still chasing the other man that night even as he lay swathed in his blankets in the comfort of his own bed.  
  
-x-  
  
“Are you feeling okay, Kondo-san?”  
  
Kondo yelped, accidentally ripping apart one of the documents he was actually reading in half. Staring at the ruined document in blank shock, he looked up to see Sougo’s evil, impish grin and semi-malicious red eyes. Sighing and thinking of how Toshi was going to kill him, Kondo brushed aside the destroyed page and looked up at the younger male.  
  
“Why do you ask, Sougo?”  
  
“Oh I just haven’t heard Hijikata-san complaining about having to retrieve your dead carcass from a certain hostess club or a certain household lately.” Sougo blinked innocent eyes at the older man. “It’s a bit annoying, really. Hijikata-san always looked so dumb every time you did something stupid, Kondo-san. But now that you aren’t stalking that gorilla-woman, Hijikata-san looks happier. It’s annoying how much happier he looks now.”  
  
Lacking anything substantial to say, Kondo just denied, “I don’t stalk Otae-san!”  
  
“Kondo-san, you were once found underneath her bed. The only reason you’re not in jail right now is because you’re the police chief. The system is so corrupt; it’s really the only reason I want to become a police officer.”  
  
“…to fix it?” Kondo offered hopefully while trying to ignore all the stalker-stuff that held absolutely no truth at all.  
  
“No, to take full advantage of it so I can finally kill Hijikata-san without being subjected to the law.”  
  
Kondo let out a loud guffaw, brushing away such a nonchalant death threat with practiced ease.  
  
“Then you better study hard at school, Sougo!” Kondo said with happy merriment. “Which…shouldn’t you be in class right now?”  
  
“It’s just a discussion session, so don’t worry about it.” Sougo replied. “But seriously Kondo-san, are you feeling alright?”  
  
“I’m feeling perfectly fine!”  
  
“Hmm…I don’t see your collage of that gorilla-woman anywhere.”  
  
“Ack!” Some weird streak of fear rushed through him, and Kondo perked up fearfully. “You knew about that collage? You knew about it?”  
  
“Everybody knows about the collage,” Sougo said dryly, his voice flat and failing to show any emotion. “Zaki found it one day and told everyone. It spread through the office pretty quickly. After all, Zaki is the best anpan-eater here.”  
  
“Anpan has nothing to do with it!” Kondo cried out. “Also, that collage isn’t what it looks like. It was an art project, an art project at the YMCA. We were just learning how to make collages, and those pictures weren’t of Otae-san. They were just pictures of women who looked like Otae-san, since her beauty is so universal!”  
  
“Yes, yes.” Sougo brushed off Kondo’s frantic words as easily as wiping off water. A glint suddenly filled his eyes, and Sougo grinned at his older friend. “By the way, how is your roommate, Kondo-san?”  
  
Kondo sighed, and sat back down. He and Katsura have slowly begun to get closer since his somewhat-impromptu visit to Zurako’s workplace last month. They spend more time together during the weekends, having visited the community pool as planned (somehow Katsura managed to catch a fish in there, and he had actually dragged along a watermelon to have cooled in the pool…Kondo was sure that they were going to get kicked out, but since Sakata-san and Hasegawa-san were the lifeguards on duty that day, nothing happened), going to the nearby petting zoo (Katsura attempted to adopt [nay, _steal_ ] every single animal there), and to the movies (they watched a romantic film involving sappy love confessions and epic montage sequences of robots beating the crap out of each other; Katsura _cried_ ).  
  
They had also begun to cook together whenever they both had time. They were both terrible at it, but it was their combined horridness that somehow made such a usually boring and mundane activity _fun_. There was somehow a contentment that had painted over Kondo’s life. He found even the most typical activities (vacuuming with Katsura and Elizabeth DJ-ing to the beat of the _vacuum_ ) enjoyable.  
  
In four short months, Kondo’s life had become so domestic that it _terrified_ him. Because while he had dreamed of domesticity all his life, the actual thing was both different yet so much better than his imagination could have possibly conjured up (not to mention in his dreams, it’s not usually someone like _Katsura_ that is his partner).  
  
Thinking of burning the rice this morning and causing the smoothie-maker to explode, coughing up a mixture of bananas and strawberries and general slush all over the kitchen and ending his morning starving and mopping up the mess with Katsura while Elizabeth plucked all over the floor, Kondo felt a grin involuntarily split his face.  
  
“My roommate is doing fine, Sougo. Thank you,” Kondo said, semi-gratefully. Sougo cocked a curious brow, before a sly smile graces his boyish face. Leaping up from where he had been perched on the corner of the desk, Sougo sauntered to the door leading out of Kondo’s private office.  
  
“I’ll tell Hijikata-san that he has nothing to worry about then,” Sougo said. Turning around, he grinned and launched something towards Kondo’s face. Grasping the small package, Kondo looked up just in time to see Sougo give a nonchalant wave before bounding out of the office with a “Don’t say I never did anything for you” thrown over his shoulder.    
  
Looking down, Kondo saw that it was banana flavoured lube.  
  
He flushed, and let out a terrified scream.  
  
-x-  
  
Kondo got home that evening to the face of his roommate, a silver-haired perm-head, and two strangers.  
  
“You got back just in time!” Katsura cheered from the middle of the living room. Kondo looked around to see the usual coffee table that took up a majority of the space to have been pushed to the side in order to make room in the middle of the floor. Sakata-san was sprawled on the couch, his legs stretched out in front of him. Seeing Kondo, the perm-head gave a lazy wave while his eyes and eyebrows twitched towards the individual sitting beside him in furious warning.  
  
The man sitting next to Sakata-san had purplish-black hair, and one piercing green eye (the other was hidden beneath a white eyepatch) which was already throwing daggers at Kondo. A scowl adorned his face, and his eyebrows were furrowed in what seemed to be righteous anger.  
  
Turning away rapidly from that terrifying face, Kondo looked at the final stranger sitting cross-legged on his one-seater. This man had a brown perm that was impressively wavier and larger than Sakata-san’s perm, and we was wearing tinted red, round sunglasses that hid his eyes from view. A large smile was stretched across his face, and the next thing he knew, this smiling stranger was standing right before Kondo and reaching for his hand.  
  
“The name’s Sakamoto Tatsuma!” Sakamoto Tatsuma said happily. “So you're Zura’s new roommate. We’ve heard a lot about you from him, and wow, you really _do_ look like an ape! We hope you’re treating him well!” His words then trailed off into the most obnoxious laughter ever, and suddenly Kondo’s head began pounding painfully.  
  
“Oi, let the man go, Tatsuma,” Sakata-san said from his position on the couch. He finished picking his nose and flicked the golden nugget into the wild yonder and Kondo watched with blind horror. “You’re terrifying him, no one wants to see your mug so up close and personal, ya know?”  
  
“That’s just mean, Kintoki!” Sakamoto Tatsuma cried out, turning away from Kondo and running towards where the silver-haired man was seated.  
  
“My name’s not Kintoki, damn you.”  
  
Flickering his eyes away from where Sakamoto Tatsuma was shaking Sakata-san’s head by the collar of his shirt, Kondo looked at the final individual sitting next to the spectacle, seemingly undisturbed at all by the going-ons next to him.  
  
“Um, my name is Kondo Isao,” Kondo offered, “and you are…?”  
  
The green-eyed man simply glared at him even harder, before turning his face away and letting out a disgusted “Tch”. Kondo’s smile wavered and he felt an iceberg lodge inside his stomach, causing his entire body to feel numb and cold.  
  
“That’s one of my childhood friends, Takasugi Shinsuke,” Katsura offered from where he stood, attempting to pry Sakamoto Tatsuma away from Sakata-san’s slowly turning-blue-face. “Don’t worry about him, he acts grumpy and scary but he’s actually pretty nice.” Turning away from Kondo, he reprimanded his other two friends with a heavy, “Come on, break it up you two. This isn’t how guests should act!”  
  
After another few minutes, Sakata-san was back to lounging carelessly on the couch next to a still angry-looking Takasugi Shinsuke. Sakamoto Tatsuma was sitting cross-legged once more on the one-seater, a smile pasted happily over his face, and Katsura was once again standing in front of them in his loose t-shirt and track pants. Kondo had grabbed a chair from the kitchen and moved it to sit beside Sakata-san.  
  
“I had made a new dance,” Katsura announced to his small audience, and Kondo felt a small smile creep onto his face at how proud and happy his roommate looked. “And I wanted to share it with you. Hit it Elizabeth!”  
  
Elizabeth just quacked at him, and Sakata-san ended up being the one of press the play button on the radio.  
  
A weird song involving a bunch of whistles and beeps soon filled the silent, staticky air of the apartment. Katsura soon began moving along with the strange sounds, following it up with even stranger movements. His hands flung about in a manner so haphazard and ridiculous, yet there was some sort of wild grace to it all. His feet tapped and glided across the carpet floors, and his lean body wiggled about.  
  
It was a hilarious dance, and Katsura’s audience seemed to enjoy it as well. Laughter filled the air, as Sakamoto Tatsuma almost fell back from how hard he was guffawing. Sakata-san let loose a small laugh every now and then, though his lips were constantly quirked up in a content grin, and even Takasugi Shinsuke was smiling. It wasn’t malicious laughter either; but one that can only be shared by true friends. Katsura seemed to drink in their amusement as well. He almost seemed to flower from their vocal happiness, his dance slowly picking up pace until it just seemed to be a bunch of waving appendages flapping in the air.  
  
It was sitting amidst two strangers, a sadistic silver-haired perm, while watching Katsura waving and fluttering and leaping along with the most bizarre music, hair catching between his lips and clinging to his lashes that Kondo felt something strong and concrete settle heavily in his chest. The heavy lump of _something_ slowly expanded until it took over his lungs, making it hard to breathe and hard to think. The longer he stared at Katsura’s frantic movements, the harsher his heart began beating and the harder it began to take in oxygen.  
  
And it was then, while slowly suffocating to the weird movements of his roommate and the weirder laughter of his roommate’s friends, that he realized what these past four months had been slowly but surely leading to.  
  
“Oh, fuck.” He managed to say.  
  
Then he was pretty sure he passed out or something.  
  
Suffocating, and all.  
  
  
  
  
**To Be Continued**


End file.
